After two years of renovation works, the Glass Rotunda at the National Museum of Singapore is finally opening its doors this month. Two permanent installations feature in the space — one’s a digital marvel titled ‘Story of the Forest’ by teamLab, the other’s a photo exhibit called ‘Singapore, Very Old Tree’ by local artist Robert Zhao.
Both are quite a sight to behold.
As you pull back the curtains and step inside the Glass Rotunda, you’ll be greeted by bright and colourful flowers floating across the dome-like ceiling — it’s part of the engaging digital installation ‘Story of the Forest’. Inspired by the National Museum’s ‘The William Farquhar Collection of Natural History Drawings’, the projection transforms 69 drawings into animated illustrations that interact with you as you stroll down the 15m-high, 170m-long passage.
To get hands-on, download the free app (on the App Store or Google Play) and start your hunt to capture the myriad flora and fauna with your phone’s camera function. Once you ‘catch’ an animal, you’ll get insight into illustrations from the William Farquhar collection. Think of it as an educational version of Pokémon Go (if that’s what gets you excited about the game).
When you reach the end of the spiralling passageway, a dark room filled with light projection awaits. As more people enter, the trees begin to grow and the animals frolic around, thanks to sensors placed all around the space. It’s a pretty cool interactive area — you gotta check it out for yourself.
Take a look at the exhibition below.
Then there’s ‘Singapore, Very Old Tree’ by local artist Robert Zhao at the next exhibition room. Inspired by one of the oldest postcards in the National Archives of Singapore that showed an unspecified tree from 1904, the series spotlights stories of 30 trees across the island — of which 17 images are on display here.
The Glass Rotunda at the National Museum of Singapore opens from Dec 10, daily 10am-7pm.
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